The Commonwealth of Massachusetts Executive Office of Labor and Workforce Development recently published FAQs that provide guidance on the Commonwealth’s new Salary Range Transparency Act (“the Act”). The Act requires employers with 100 or more employees at any time during the prior calendar year to submit their Equal Employment Opportunity (“EEO”)-1 reports to the Commonwealth by February 1 of each year. The FAQs include information for employers on their reporting requirements under the Act. Individual data will not be made public; only aggregated data will be published.
Key Takeaways and Clarifications from the FAQs:
- Employers need not create new reports or make changes to their existing EEO-1 report. Employers may “file the same copy of the EEO report you filed with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (“EEOC”).” Employers have the option, however, to customize a report reflecting the required data for only Massachusetts-based employees.
- Employers are not required to submit W-2 income earnings data by race/ethnicity, sex, and job category to the Commonwealth, since pay data is not part of the current EEOC reporting requirements.
- The initial EEO-1 report is due by February 1, 2025, and annually on the same date thereafter. Since February 1 falls on a Saturday this year, reports will be accepted until Monday, February 3, 2025. The other EEO reports are due by the same deadline but on a biennial basis: EEO-3 and EEO-5 this year (2025), and EEO-4 next year (2026).
- Employers must submit the report in PDF, JPG, or PNG format to the Secretary of State’s office through the web portal. The web portal for filing the EEO-1 reports is live, and can be accessed here.
In addition to the February deadline for wage data reporting, the Act also requires Massachusetts employers to disclose salary ranges for most employment postings by October 29, 2025. We expect the Commonwealth to release additional guidance for employers on the pay disclosure requirements. In the meantime, more general information on the upcoming requirements can be found in our recent Workplace blog post: Massachusetts Governor Signs Pay Transparency Law – Blank Rome Workplace.